Hupotasso (Vampire Bachelor Games #2)

17

17

I sit in my hotel room in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and prepare for my meeting with Pasha’s family. Having watched the series now, I realise how hard this is going to be for them.

The editing was truly diabolical.

In Pasha’s case Showman had essentially hotch-potched a variety of footage of small arguments or disagreements I’d had with her over the course of the weeks we’d lived under the same roof. It had made it seem like we were mortal enemies. This had culminated in him panning in for a close-up of her corpse in the snow, the arrow still visible, ensuring the audience would have been left with no doubt that I was a cold-blooded killer.

I flick through the notes I have from the show and try to remember some good things I can say about Pasha, my eyes drifting to the list I’d made of contestants. Beside each name I’d noted how they’d died and everything I knew about them. I’d started chronologically with the first night when we’d lost the British and Indian contestants. I rewound footage surrounding those two several times to try and garner more of an impression of them for when I visit their families.

I’d never even learned their names. Pretty much all I could remember about them was their shocked expressions and gallons of blood as their hearts were ripped out and their heads ripped off. But I know I won’t have to talk about anything like that with their families. The public only saw stand-in actresses with their backs to the camera as they stared at the gardens with a voice-over from Falcon that was clipped from another time when he’d said, “Will you accept my bite?”

As far as the audience knows, he took them aside at the first cocktail party and dispensed with them in a gentlemanly way. No one, including their families, would ever know the true horror their daughters actually went through.

The next contestants on my list I also didn’t know very well, and I’ll have to draw on the footage I saw in The Games to speak to their families as well. These include the Thai girl who Falcon killed at the second cocktail party, the Swedish doctor who Giselle killed in the first challenge, and the Saudi Arabian who’d come last in that challenge and also been killed by Falcon. It had been too soon in The Games to have anything but a basic impression of these women.

I can’t help but wonder how Falcon decided this early on who to kill and who to keep. He really seemed quite remorseless and downright bloodthirsty in his choices — a giant red flag I’d noticed but been unable to do anything about. Later, though, I shake my head, I should have remembered.

I continue staring at my list.

After that first challenge we’d moved to Morocco, and the Italian was killed by Falcon. I hadn’t particularly liked or disliked her. She was a strong personality. Then the night fishing challenge had seen the Samoan killed by Giselle, although she never claimed that kill, and the Mexican came last and was eaten by Falcon. I’d enjoyed the Mexican’s sense of humour, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember her name. I re-read it three or four times now to try and get it into my head. There was a little footage of us joking in the kitchen as I cooked nachos, and it made me sad. I hope I manage to impress upon her family what a lovely young woman she was.

The deaths all start to become a little easier to remember after that. And I know these will be the hardest families to meet.

I recall the night Yin and Kesha, the South African contestant, went on a double date and how scared I’d been that Yin wouldn’t return. Falcon had thrown Kesha over the edge of the Eiffel Tower that night. I hadn’t known that until he told me later.

‘That’s not something her family needs to know, but it should have told me something about him. God, why was I so blind to his faults? Still, seeing her bitch about me on the show does make it seem a little more excusable…’

I skim further down my list, the body count growing exponentially. My notes became longer as I’d remembered things about each contestant and watched the show to fill in the gaps. I just have to make sure I don’t say something the audience was not privy to.

Some of the people I’d thought were OK were actually back-stabbing bitches. Watching the show as a survivor is not for the faint-hearted. I hadn’t realised how disliked I was, or the open jealousy about me that was simmering beneath the surface and overflowing in other rooms. All I’d really noticed was the odd snarky comment. There was definitely intent to kill me though; that was evident. And there had been a level of protection, both physical and emotional, that my small group of friends, particularly Yin, had provided that had insulated me from the harshest comments and several real threats.

Some of those most keen to end me had met their own untimely ends in the Louvre. The Greek contestant had been killed by the Chinese contestant, who was then killed by Giselle, and the Norwegian contestant came last and was killed by Falcon. That’s all on the public record. Three in one night. The fact that they were three who planned to knock me off as soon as they could was news to me. The footage from that night was all new to me too, though, because I’d been unconscious.

After that episode the show had started to become more personal and harder to watch. There were things I’d blocked out and things I’d remembered differently, either because Tom had fabricated and made shit up for the ratings, or because I’d just looked through the prism of my experience.

After my hospital stay I’d acknowledged my feelings for Falcon, but the montage Tom had put together of Falcon’s tender watch over me while I was ill was heartbreaking. He really looked like he’d cared. I can see why the audience ate it up. Of course Tom was a smart director too, leaving giant cliffhangers between scenes so the audience feared for my life again and again. Panning in on my peaceful slumber as Giselle leant over and put a pillow on my face was, I had to admit, genius. I’m sure Sam and all the other viewers would have been on the edge of their seats waiting for the next episode to see if I was dead. And I’m sure they would have been invested in the whole ‘the plain-Jane has won his heart,’ crap Tom was spinning.

Meanwhile Falcon fucked and sucked the Indonesian contestant and flat out killed the Turkish woman as easily as if he was squashing a bug. I’d pegged the latter as a bit of a front-runner, she was truly mysterious to me —obviously not to a vampire, though. As for his spa antics with the Indonesian, although mostly hinted at through careful editing, it was obvious what had occurred. Tom used this to highlight that Falcon had ‘broken the rules again’ to keep his roguish ‘what will he do next?’ Appeal going with the audience.

It made me sick to the stomach to watch.

I’m ashamed to say I was happy he killed her.

I don’t know how I’m going to handle that family visit.

Of course, there’s going to be worse than that, because then Isabel was pushed off a cliff during the Japanese challenge. Although I didn’t technically do it, or claim it, I am responsible for it. I can still hear her scream as she plummeted to her death. There were no cameras around for that, so once again Tom hammed up some footage and showed a body being recovered from the sea, although to my knowledge, they never found her.

I haven’t taken too many notes on Isabel. I remember her clearly. I remember her as a friend. I’m still a little heartbroken over her attempts on my life, although knowing more about the vampire world now, I understand why. I’m also trying to play my cards close to my chest about her. Caroline’s watching me like a hawk, and I don’t want to let on even a hint of what I’m thinking about through a misplaced expression or comment in relation to The Free Men.

Instead I’m, on the surface, focusing on others.

Juliette died that night too, the night Isabel died, since she’d came last in the challenge. I hadn’t minded her, and I’m actually looking forward to telling her family good things about her. Once again I’m reminded, though, that Falcon killed her without ever even taking her on a one-on-one date. She hadn’t really even been given a chance.

And Mila, poor Mila had confessed to him that she was a virgin and that had been her downfall.

I shudder.

That episode had certainly made for good viewing. Tom had edited it to make it seem Falcon was becoming besotted with her, which was ridiculous, and it made her death all the more shocking. Even from where I sat, knowing he hadn’t spent much time with her and that she hadn’t come back from that date, even I was drawn in by the drama of that episode.

I shake my head and keep reading down my list, tearing up when I see the next name; Tamara. She had no family for me to visit, yet she was someone I could happily and honestly have spoken about for a long, long time. She’d been my best friend on the set, besides Yin.

Swallowing hard, I shake my head and move on to the Parisian, Marie. She’d annoyed the hell out of me and I’d tried not to spend too much time in the same room as her, but that didn’t mean I wanted her dead. When I’d asked Falcon about her during our quiet times together before the final ceremony he’d told me I ‘didn’t want to know’ how he’d ended her. He said he’d been angry and regretted how that had played out. On the show it simply showed a tiny bit of their discussion in the back of a limousine and then him lowering her body to the seat.

But his face had been terrifying.

The audience then saw him march to the apartment and return with me over his shoulder. Thankfully, they hadn’t seen him spanking me, or any footage of our earlier altercation when he’d pulled me from my bath. I guess even Tom knew none of that could ever air.

I shake my head as I think back on that night. If I’d just decided then and there to leave, nothing could have stopped me. I had the Life Token. But I’d held on because it was too late; I’d already fallen in love with him.

I shift uncomfortably on my seat, my ass still bruised from his latest spanking. It wasn’t as if he’d promised never to hit me again. Quite the contrary. I only had myself to blame for marrying a violent man.

I try not to think of the aftermath of our last altercation, the sex, passionate at first, then tender. How he’d whispered to me to ‘open my eyes’ as my body pulsed around him, and held my gaze as he shuddered to his conclusion. But afterwards he’d left without a word again as though nothing had happened, and we were just strangers.

Sighing, I consider the last names before me. The final challenge had seen Neve murdered by Giselle, and Pasha ostensibly destroyed by me, although Yin and I knew the truth of that.

I tally the total number of deaths and who caused them, and gasp.

Falcon may not have eaten everyone like he did the first time he appeared on the show, but he still killed more than most bachelors do. In all, he’d dispatched fourteen contestants — half the entrants. Giselle had killed four, and four had been taken out by other contestants.

‘He and Giselle really had been a match made in Heaven, or Hell, depending on your thoughts on murder.’

Still, it made my job of touring the families of the dead contestants a lot easier than most royal wives had found it in the past. After all, I’d only technically killed one person, and even that was a lie. Other royal wives who’d won The Games and secured their seats had been just as bloodthirsty as Giselle, if not more so.

I frown as I consider this thought. Now that I’ve survived The Games and lived them a second time watching them as a viewer, one thing is glaringly, blindingly obvious.

I didn’t belong.

So how the hell did I end up on the show? And how on God’s green earth had I won? My skin goosebumps as a thought occurs to me, one that I’ve dismissed time and again. One that I’ve sworn black and blue isn’t true.

‘Could Falcon actually be right? Could I have been deliberately placed in The Games? Am I under some vampire’s control and I don’t even realise it?’

“Oh fuck.”